Novell has closed on its acquisition of PlateSpin Ltd, whose widgetry can move workloads between physical and virtual environments regardless of platform or OS.

Novell is pairing it with its systems management technology and making it part of its Systems and Resource Management Group.

Adobe To Do Something about Jobs’ Slurs
Rumor has it that in the next few weeks Adobe is going to “reorganize” its Mobile and Device business unit where its Jobs-criticized Flash Lite lives and send the engineers to go work with the larger platform effort and Flash proper, which Jobs has also criticized. Presumably, Adobe is going to do what it takes to appease Jobs. It does want to be on the iPhone and needs Apple’s help.

This and No More: Microsoft
The Wall Street Journal, still wary of what may only be a cunning strategy, has now been relatively persuaded – based on what unidentified people close to the company have told it – that Microsoft has no plans to raise it bid for Yahoo on the theory that it would only be bidding against itself – which is the message Oppenheimer relayed after emerging from a management meeting with Microsoft last week. So unless Yahoo gets in there and negotiates, Microsoft may be going to the mattresses for control of its reluctant bride. It has now been two months since Microsoft made its unsolicited $31-a-share offer, which Yahoo rejected as inadequate.

Google CIO Heads to EMI
Google’s CIO and VP of engineering Douglas Merrill has answered EMI Music’s presidential dinner bell. He will run its digital unit from Los Angeles. EMI, the fourth-biggest label by unit sales and owned since last year by Terra Firma Capital Partners, is in the UK. Somehow it seems appropriate that Merrill’s degrees are in social and political organization and psychology.

Microsoft & the Slippery Slope
CoreBrand says Microsoft’s mighty brand is in decline. According to a poll of 12,000 American decision makers, Microsoft dropped from the 12th most powerful name in the US in 2004 to – gad – number 59 last year. In 1996 it was number one.

H-1B Visa Watch
The US government got something like 200,000 applications for 65,000 H-1B visas on Tuesday. It was the first day the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) starting taking applications for the fiscal year starting October 1, 2008. The window won’t close until Monday. Microsoft expects to get about 640 of its 1,600 applications approved. According to Reuters, roughly a third of Microsoft’s US-based employees have required some form of visa assistance.

Google Lays Off 35% of DoubleClick US
Google is laying off 300 of its newly acquired DoubleClick people. And that’s only in the US where DoubleClick had 1,200 people. Google has yet to get around to DoubleClick’s people overseas. According to the New York Times, it also wants to dump at least the main part of DoubleClick’s Performics Search Marketing unit, which helps place ads on search engines like Microsoft, Yahoo and Google itself. It competes with Google.

The Auspices Are Against AMD
JP Morgan is expecting AMD’s first quarter to come in below guidance. It thinks AMD is losing market share to Intel and that it has to “drastically cut back production” and focus on execution.

Google Rumor Mill
Something’s supposed to be going on between Google and Skype, which eBay has lost a pretty penny on since acquiring the VoIP venture in ’05 for – bless me – $3.1 billion. Google is also supposed to be interested in acquiring Expedia, the Internet-based travel agent that Microsoft started, according to unsubstantiated Wall Street rumors that Reuters repeated.

Apple Defector Goes to Baidu
The former general manager of Apple China Peng Ye has gone to Baidu.com as COO.

Firefox: 750 Fixes Better Than Before
Mozilla has released beta 5 of Firefox 3 for Windows and the Mac. Altogether there are supposed to be 750 fixes in the thing.

Hedge Fund Hot on Red Hat
Tremblant Capital Group, a hedge fund, now owns 5.95% of Red Hat. It started collecting shares in the third quarter last year and apparently added significantly in March, according to Barron’s.